Big 4 Consulting Firms

[Doggiedog]

Thanks. I went from a job where I worked from 7am-midnight to a 9-5. I think I've been to risk averse (funny coming from a risk manager) so I'm looking for a new opportunity. I think the market for my line of work is picking up and these guys moved very quickly. I may be unprepared since it's been a while working those hours and deadlines but I've done it before. I just didn't know the reputation of these firms and how I would be viewed if I took a role and left a few years later.

 

[dbk]

my brother works at Booz.. he says it went to shit after they went public in 2010

 

[Doggiedog]

That's great! Congrats on the move!

wow i worked at deloitte right after college from 2005-2008, crazy to see it be #4 now at vault. anyways I thought the culture sucked and the people were of middling quality, lots of facetime bullshit and doing your firm activities to get your extra curricular activities in.

honestly don't think I learned a thing other than I got ot focus on my soft skills. projects took me to different industries from government, high tech to pharm. sent to projects from saramento, ca all the way to basel switzerland. your staffing totally depends on your own network and ability to schmooze the higher ups.

in year 3 I was sick of it, so I knew I was going to leave and purposely didn't get staffed. mid year review = not on track and when I quit I had ~50% utilization. ended up quitting to join a startup as employee 1XX this is now public worth ~20B today - I think that one worked out

 

[Doggiedog]

I just realized when I was working the 7am to midnighter I posted 12k posts on here. Then when I went to the 9-5er I must have posted less than 100. LOL!

 

[Connoisseur]

I just realized when I was working the 7am to midnighter I posted 12k posts on here. Then when I went to the 9-5er I must have posted less than 100. LOL!

I think it's a well known fact that working ridiculous hours inevitably erodes efficiency. Human minds weren't designed to work at full swing for long periods of time. Back when I was a staff and senior consultant (7 or 8 years ago) at my old company, I used to pull 12 hour days easy. Most of the after hours time was spent surfing the internet because I was too exhausted to focus on work. Consulting companies are often just focused on billables and don't really account for the human factor...

As an aside, I work at E&Y and it's absolutely true that the pace of work and the people completely depends on the project on which you're staffed. Some projects are relatively easy 9-5 gigs and others are crazy, travelling 80 hour a week nightmares. Your real job is to meet your billable targets, make sure the client/your boss is happy and - in the case of senior managers and above- ensure that you're meeting your revenue targets.

I think the only teams where this doesn't apply is audit/accounting. Those guys are pretty much guaranteed to work crazy hours during tax season and QE.

 

[Blain]

Is anyone familiar here with the reputations of the big 4 consulting firms? I am about to get an offer from one of them but I've never worked in the field. I have no idea if E&Y has a better reputation than say KPMG. I can tell you about investment banks and broker dealers but know nothing about consulting. I know a lot of it depends on who and what group you work for but perhaps some may have reputations like cheap, sweat shop, elitist, etc. Any insight would be helpful!

Thanks!

DD

You'd better be productive within two years.

 

[Orsorum]

Reputation in the market for the Big 4 depends on service line to some extent. In tax, can vary from something as simple as "I have a friend at DT and he's awesome, so I'm going to hire them." to "I have a Cloud computing tax issue, so I'm going to call KPMG." The Big 4 are the Big 4, hire from the same pool of talent, and have access to the same resources.

IMO, go with whichever recruiting team you have the best chemistry with. Then re-evaluate at regular intervals.

 

[Wreckem]

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[Orsorum]

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[thegimp03]

Speaking from the Big 4 audit firms standpoint, their reputation generally depends on who you ask, what department you're in at the firm, and what part of the country/world you're in. Like in the Silicon Valley, E&Y audit might have a larger share of well-known companies (think Apple, Google, etc.), but because of that, one of the other firms probably has some of the better advisory clients.

If you don't mind getting worked half to death on substandard pay for a few years, Big 4 audit is a great way to fast track your career, build your resume, and get a substantial network of contacts.

 

[Craig234]

In my opinion, all of them are overall dubious - they know where their bread is buttered, and that's by aiding their clients in pushing envelopes for savings at taxpayer expense.

I think there are big ethical problems for them - though they'd argue as they spend big bucks on marketing to paint themselves as pure.

A lot of what they do is vanilla accounting and consulting that's legitimate - but I'm not happy with the cultures.

They also have reputations for tending to overstaff projects to make more money.

It's you're concerned about their reputation. Wish I had better news.

A while back, 'Arthur Andersen' had to reform as 'Accenture' over a scandal.

 

[Franz316]

When I picture a soul-sucking, mentally stressful, family destroying, cookie cutter corporate job, I picture a job at one of those huge consulting firms.

 

[IHAVEAQUESTION]

The consulting arm at Big 4s is a very different animal than the usual accounting & tax career most people associate with Big 4s.

So OP, did you accept the offer?